This session brought together two marketer–finance pairs to talk about something most marketers quietly struggle with: how to get finance to believe in, back, and understand marketing.
The notes below pull out the main lessons and examples from the webinar, written with help from AI (so any tiny slips are on us).
Table of Contents
- 1. Why the marketing–finance relationship matters
- 2. Issue 1: Budgets with no shared expectations
- 3. Issue 2: Different definitions of “value”
- 4. Issue 3: Forecasts nobody trusts
- 5. Practical fixes you can start tomorrow
- 6. How Genio plans pipeline, spend and payback
- 7. Building a single source of truth
- 8. Where to start
1. Why the marketing–finance relationship matters
Dan and Alfie opened with a simple observation: when marketing and finance don’t talk, everyone’s work gets harder.
Marketing needs investment before results show up. Finance needs results before they feel safe releasing more budget. Left alone, that becomes a stalemate.
When the relationship works, marketing becomes a clear growth driver rather than a suspicious-looking cost line. When it doesn’t, both teams spend their time defending themselves instead of growing the business.
2. Issue 1: Budgets with no shared expectations
The first common problem: misunderstood budgets.
Marketing tends to talk about campaigns, ideas, channels and momentum. Finance wants to see cost, timeframes, and a credible route to profit.
When those two languages don’t line up, you get:
- Vague budget asks with no numbers behind them.
- Finance pushing for short-term returns that marketing cannot realistically deliver.
- Planning cycles that drag on because no one is quite sure what has been agreed.
When it works better, marketing can explain activities in a simple “what, when, how much, what we expect back” format. Finance can give clearer guardrails and feels more confident releasing money for longer-term plays.
3. Issue 2: Different definitions of “value”
The second gap sits around a single word: value.
Marketing often looks at leading indicators:
- Reach and awareness
- Engagement
- Pipeline contribution
Finance cares more about lagging indicators:
- Revenue
- Margin
- Lifetime value and payback
Both sets of numbers matter. The problem is that they rarely get joined up.
If marketing only reports the early signals, finance struggles to see how that turns into money. If finance only talks about revenue and margin, marketers feel they’re being judged on numbers they don’t fully control.
The shift comes when both sides agree a simple shared scorecard that links leading and lagging metrics in a visible chain, for example:
Brand → Demand → Pipeline → Revenue → Margin
Once those links are agreed, budget conversations become calmer. You debate the strategy, not whether marketing “did anything useful this year.”
4. Issue 3: Forecasts nobody trusts
The third pain point is forecasting.
Finance needs forecasts to decide hiring, investment, and cash planning. Marketing knows that campaigns don’t behave like neat spreadsheets.
Without a shared approach, you get:
- Forecasts built in isolation by finance, based on wishful thinking.
- Pipeline numbers that appear once a quarter, with surprises baked in.
- Last-minute news that targets won’t be hit, when it’s too late to change anything.
Dan and Alfie argued for rolling forecasts that are built together and updated regularly. Definitions matter here too: everyone needs the same meaning for “committed,” “expected,” and “upside” revenue.
5. Practical fixes you can start tomorrow
The first half of the session finished with simple actions marketers can take right away.
Translate activity into a basic financial model
Nothing fancy. For each major initiative, write down:
- What it is
- When it runs
- How much it costs
- What you expect it to influence (leads, pipeline, revenue)
- Over what timeframe
Agree the rules of the game upfront
If finance is going to invest, what KPIs will you both watch, and over how long? What would count as “working,” “needs tweaking,” or “stop”?
Set a regular rhythm
Monthly or quarterly check-ins where marketing and finance look at:
- Budget vs actual
- What’s running ahead or behind
- What needs adjusting next
The main thing finance hates isn’t bad news. It’s surprises.
6. How Genio plans pipeline, spend and payback
The second half of the webinar came from Tate (VP Marketing) and Dan (Finance lead) at Genio, who walked through how they do this in a real B2B SaaS business.
Marketing at Genio is responsible for:
- Brand and messaging
- Multi-channel campaigns
- Pipeline and revenue contribution
- Evidence of learner impact
Finance looks at:
- Core financials (P&L, balance sheet, cash)
- ARR growth
- Department budgets and margins
- Acquisition cost, lifetime value and payback
The important part: both teams look at how these metrics connect, not just their own dashboards.
For example, Tate and Dan spend time on:
- LTV:CAC and payback periods
- How seasonal their market is (big “back to school” spikes)
- How far in advance marketing spend needs to happen to create revenue moments 6–13 months later
That joint view lets them talk sensibly about questions like:
- “If we want this level of ARR growth, how much pipeline do we need?”
- “If we want that pipeline, what spend and channels does it require?”
- “Does the payback period fit the risk appetite and cash guardrails we’ve set?”
7. Building a single source of truth
To stop everyone working off their own version of reality, Genio uses:
- One agreed set of targets and budgets
- Shared assumptions on risk, payback and seasonality
- A planning sheet that connects finance cost centres with marketing ROI categories (for example, HubSpot campaign tags)
Marketing can show how spend is split by product, market and channel, and how that links back to revenue by the same slices.
Each month, Tate and Dan meet to:
- Review actual spend vs plan
- See whether pipeline and revenue are tracking against expectations
- Flag changes early, rather than at year-end
Because they do this regularly, the big annual budget process becomes a tidy update, not a shock.
8. Where to start
The speakers finished where they began: this is mostly about communication and trust.
You don’t need a perfect model on day one. You do need:
- Regular conversations between marketing and finance
- Clear, simple explanations of what you’re doing and why
- A shared picture of value and timeframes
From there, you can build the more detailed scorecards and models together, rather than throwing spreadsheets at each other from opposite sides of the office.